Caoching The Basics

1	Focus on the person you are coaching The role of a coach is enabling someone to identify and achieve objectives, and to do so through self belief whilst maintaining responsibility for actions and results.
2	Guide, do not tell You are there to guide, facilitate and motivate through change, and ensure that people you coach remain responsible throughout. It may seem easier and quicker to tell them what to do, and there are times when this is necessary. However, put time aside to coach people or teams until they discover and commit to how they will achieve their goals.
3	Don't give the answers  The skills, attributes and attitudes required for successful coaching are different from those needed in leading and managing.  Coaching is all about getting the person you coach to do the thinking and come up with answers.
4	Practice the right skills  In order to prepare for the role of coach, develop these skills:  active listening  good questioning techniques  letting the people look through their lens at the world and not yours  knowing when to challenge to encourage people to make change where necessary  ability to stop offering answers The last is fundamental to being an effective coach, and probably the most difficult skill to practise.
5	Maintain the right attitudes As a coach the attitudes you portray should include:  a positive outlook  a high energy to keep up the motivation of your client  a high level of interest  a never ending desire to enable your client to succeed in their language  having only one agenda – that of the person being coached
6	Their needs, not yours Be … nonjudgmental  a good listener  consistently honest with integrity  professional, ethical and confidential at all times  a good communicator
7	Learn the GROW model  GROW is an acronym for Goals, Reality, Options and Will. As the acronym suggests, it is a four-stage framework that enables the coach to provide a structure to a coaching session, without getting in the way of the client’s agenda.
8	Remember that both of you have to work The coach and the person you coach are partners. That means reviewing what is going well as well as what is not going so well, and being prepared to do whatever it takes to improve on the not-so-good areas.
9	Start from where the person is, now Take the person you’re coaching as he or she is. Adult members of staff are already in the middle of their lives, and come with particular views, attitudes, commitments, potential and concerns - all of which go to make up the individual person.
10	Not immediate but long term The aim of coaching is that people being coached are able to produce more successful and effective performance repeatedly over a longer period of time. Coaching is not about short term motivation. For more information on caoching visit our website corporate training events with Call of the Wild   Related Themes Behaviour & personality Personal leadership